Dark matter

Dave Matthews Band's 'Big Whiskey' is brooding &#8211; and band's best in a long time

For the Dave Matthews Band, it came in the days after the death of founding saxophonist LeRoi Moore, who died in August after being injured in an ATV accident, while they were still working on “Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King.”

Although the band has always been top-notch in concert, it had been struggling in the studio in recent years with production issues and conflicting views about where it was headed.

On “GrooGrux King,” which was Moore's nickname, the band members' motives are clear, even while their hearts are heavy.

No surprise – much of the album is concerned with death and the weightier questions surrounding it. Doesn't everyone deserve to have the good life? Matthews asks in the groovy love song “Spaceman.” But it don't always work out. Cry, cry, baby, if we must.

“Spaceman” is actually a lighter moment, especially when paired with the funereal, nearly menacing “Squirm,” and it serves as almost a coping mechanism throughout the album, mixing pretty sounds with dark lyrics and vice versa. It works well in the horn-heavy, churning “Shake Me Like a Monkey” and the single “Funny the Way It Is,” which juxtaposes jazzy tinges with dark-hearted sentiments.

It's melancholy stuff, for sure. But its singular purpose also makes “Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King” the best Dave Matthews Band album in more than a decade.